


The Path We Choose

by itzteegan



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Conversations, Drinking, Drinking & Talking, Drinking to Cope, F/M, Gen, Guilt, Late Night Conversations, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:27:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25579573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itzteegan/pseuds/itzteegan
Summary: Late nights around a campfire lead to a needed conversation between the Courier and Joshua Graham
Relationships: Courier/Joshua Graham, Female Courier/Joshua Graham
Comments: 8
Kudos: 13





	The Path We Choose

**Author's Note:**

> No, I'm not ignoring my WIPs. You are. <.<
> 
> (I will get to them, I promise, life has just been super shitty lately and this helps, okay?)

"How do you do it?"

The question almost startled Joshua as he looked up from oiling A Light Shining in Darkness. Light from the fire licked at her face, illuminating the tan skin and the worry lines almost permanently etched in her forehead, disrupted only by the scar above her eyebrow. A bottle of what he assumed was whiskey was partially drunk already, the liquor moistening her lips, her tongue darting out to lap up the excess. "Do what?" he asked, unsure her meaning. Zelda was deep in her head tonight, barely aware of the passing world around her, though he didn't mind. The quiet was his friend as well, and he didn't begrudge the Courier her own time.

Gesturing in a generic manner, she was saved from sloshing her beverage only because she had drank enough of it. "How do you just go on ... knowing the things you've done, the people you've killed or wronged. How do you deal with all of it?"

Count on Zelda to be shotgun subtle. Sighing, he regarded her question seriously, though with a certain level of chagrin knowing that she could have asked literally anyone else in the Mojave and the answer wouldn't have been as loaded as his. "You're not going to like it," he warned her.

"Why not?"

"Because you look like you're looking for nice, neat answer, and you won't find that here."

Zelda blinked slowly at him a few times, as if she was carefully weighing whether she wanted to continue the conversation or not. Eventually, she replied, "At this point, I'll take any answer."

He exhaled half a chuckle. "Very well." As the former Malpais Legate, Joshua had plenty of red in his ledger. Zelda had nowhere near as much as he, though she had divulged some of the seedier aspects of her past. Running drugs for the Khans. Sealing away a whole Vault and dooming its surviving inhabitants to death. Dismantling the Omertas by killing their bosses and instilling a leader who was just a different flavour of shit. Killing Mr. House and wresting control of his protectrons for herself, though Joshua didn't personally see the downside to the end of House. Seducing and sleeping with the man who killed her before returning the favour. Massacring Cottonwood Cove just to send a message to the Legion as to where her loyalties laid. Zelda had done many a thing during her run in the Mojave, and she'd certainly gotten her hands dirty by doing so. It may have paled in comparison to Joshua's many sins during his time spent in the Legion, but it weighed on her heavily, and he would do his best to help ease the burden. Even if it didn't necessarily seem like he was doing so. _What's that old saying about leading a horse to water?_ While he couldn't directly give her an answer that would help her specifically, he would do his best to guide her there. "There is no going back, you understand? What's done is done. You won't wake up one morning and suddenly forget all your sins or feel at peace, there is no point where your good deeds outweigh your bad so as to wipe them clean from your slate."

"So this never gets any better?" she asked, and by the strain in her voice, he could tell she was distraught at the prospect.

"Not necessarily. But that is up to _you._ Peace comes from understanding, the understanding that who you are today is shaped by who you were yesterday, for good or ill. _Shaped_ , but not _defined_. It influences you, but it does not have to encompass the entirety of who you are."

Zelda was quiet a moment before she asked, her voice a little softer than before, "And who am I?"

A smile tugged at Joshua's lips underneath the bandages, crinkling the skin around his eyes. "Ah, the eternal question."

She rolled her eyes. "Don't tell me you're gonna get all philosophical on me. I don't deal in that bullshit."

While she might not have, as she put it, _dealt in that bullshit,_ Zelda was still whip-smart and he brushed aside her attempt at self-deprecation. "Mankind has eternally been searching for such answers, and many schools of thought and faith have sprung up in their wake. I have my own thoughts, shaped by my own experience, but that may not help you."

"Why not?" she asked, more curious than defensive.

"Because, as I said, the answers you're looking for are not nice and neat, and they aren't one size fits all. They are answers you have to find for yourself. I can tell you of my own experience, but it ultimately may not be of help to you."

Zelda sighed, clearly a little exasperated and what she seemed to figure should have been an easy conversation. "Well, I ain't got nothin' to start with, so might as well give me a starting point."

_Point taken._ Nodding, he acquiesced. "I sought out those that I wronged, or those that I could, at least. I made reparations. I sought forgiveness in not just word but deed. I cannot even begin to undo the damage I have done, but I can rededicate myself to a better future." Looking up at Zelda, he fixed her with a stare, hoping to drive his point home. "People like you and me, we have influence no matter what we do. Even if we do nothing, that still sends ripples across the pond that is the Mojave. Some of those ripples have brought conflict and death to those who may not have deserved it, and that we cannot change. The only thing we can hope to have a grasp on is our future, ensuring that we do not make the same mistakes or fall into old, destructive habits. I did not wake up one day and decide to become the Malpais Legate and commit violence and atrocities. It was a slow, gradual process. Little decisions, small compromises that I justified until finally I became a thing I now hate. It's a slippery slope, one that is all too easy to fall prey to. Being good, doing good, it is the same principle, though perhaps a little more difficult in practise. Daily I still struggle at times, but daily I recommit myself to a better future, a better state of being. Today, I find that I do not hate what I have become, even as I hate my past actions and the harm they caused."

Zelda took another swig of whiskey before she interjected. "That sounds too easy."

That time, he couldn't help the small shakes of laughter. "It always sounds easier than you think it should be, and likewise it is much harder in practise than you would think." As he put the finishing touches on his gun, he mused, "Guilt is a many faceted thing, and its affects are rarely so simple. It can burden you, weighing you down until you feel you cannot move, or it can motivate you to make something better, to contribute to something bigger than simply yourself." His eyes flicked up to regard the Courier, and she was not staring into the fire as she had before, but rather gazing at him intensely, as if she could read the answers for herself on his face if only she looked hard enough. "I cannot give you the peace you seek, Zelda. That must come from you. What I can tell you is that I've found action far more effective than inaction, and that the company of those you trust can be a boon when you feel the path you walk is too hard."

She nodded as she digested what he said, taking one more drink before she corked the bottle for the night. Zelda seemed a thorny, jaded prickle of a woman, but underneath Joshua saw her potential, what she could become, far better than even she could. He'd seen it already in how she kindly shared her supplies, in how she offered a helping hand, in how she defended the innocent. There was a heart of gold underneath the soot and the dirt that the Mojave had shovelled on top, and Joshua would be with her every step of the way as she dug it out and rediscovered it. It wasn't an easy path, he'd never promised her that. Only that she wouldn't walk it alone. And as she turned in for the night and Joshua kept watch, he had a feeling she'd find her way again.


End file.
